Fortress Pays Executives for Expenses to Manage Fortunes (Bloomberg)
Fortress Investment Group LLC (NYSE:FIG) gave four of its top executives $63 million in compensation last year. As part of the package, the first publicly traded private-equity and hedge-fund firm is paying to help manage their fortunes. Principals Wesley Edens, Peter Briger, Randal Nardone and Michael Novogratz were given a combined $902,496 in 2012 and 2013 for expenses connected with their “family office” staff, according to filings from Fortress. The number reflects non-cash allocations for the use of Fortress offices and equipment by family office employees, said Gordon Runte, a spokesman for the New York-based money manager.
Omni backs ex-Barclays top trader to launch European hedge fund (Reuters)
Omni Partners is preparing to launch a hedge fund to be managed by former head of European equity trading at Barclays Howard Spooner in December, as the London-based firm looks to diversify its product offerings to investors. The equities hedge fund will bet on rising and falling share prices of large-cap stocks in developed Europe, the firm said in a statement on Friday, offering its fourth fund to investors. The Omni European ELS under its chief investment officer Spooner is joined by Hugh Selby-Smith, a former Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and TT International executive as a portfolio manager.
Tiger Global Bets 2300% Gain for Bitauto Isn’t Over (BusinessWeek)
Tiger Global Management LLC is making an almost $600 million wager that the rally in shares of Bitauto Hldg Ltd (ADR) (NYSE:BITA), the Chinese car listing website operator that has surged 2,300 percent since 2012, isn’t over. The hedge fund and private-equity firm, which was founded by a protege of billionaire investor Julian Robertson, held a 14.9 percent stake in Beijing-based Bitauto as of Sept. 12 after owning no shares as of June 30, regulatory filings show. The position makes Tiger Global the largest holder (BITA:US) of the company’s U.S.-traded shares.
Everest Capital Posts Gains in EM Funds, Losses in Asia (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
All but one of the funds managed by Marko Dimitrijevic’s Everest Capital extended their gains in August, making them among the best-performing macro and emerging-markets hedge funds through August. The Miami-based firm, which invests globally but with a strong emphasis on emerging markets, reported that four of its six hedge funds and both of its long-only funds have posted year-to-date gains in the mid- to upper teens. Three of the funds are outperforming their respective benchmarks.
Software asset management tech saves hedge fund £2.3m (ComputerWorldUK)
FTSE 250 firm Man Investments has saved more than £2.3m over 24 months after deploying Snow’s SAM software to automate software licensing audits. Man Investments is one of the world’s largest independent alternative asset managers; a FTSE 250 firm manageing assets of over $ 55 billion (£34 billion). With over 2,500 physical and virtual Windows and Linux servers, 2.500 physical and virtual laptops and over 1,500 different software applications from Oracle to the finance industry specific Linedata, Man Investments’ IT team were inundated with audit requests.
Peak6 Investments sells off hedge fund (YouTube)
Hedge Funds Underperform in August (HedgeCo)
The Hennessee Hedge Fund Index gained +1.05% in August (+2.96% YTD), while the S&P 500 gained +3.77% (+8.39% YTD), the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose +3.23% (+3.15% YTD), and the NASDAQ Composite Index jumped +4.82% (+9.67% YTD). Bonds were also positive on the month, as the Barclays Aggregate Bond Index increased +1.10% (+4.80% YTD). “Normally a slow month, August had its best performance in 14 years.” commented Charles Gradante, Co-Founder of Hennessee Group LLC. “Long/short hedge funds did well at +1.70%. All strategies were positive except for interest rate sensitive (convertible arbitrage, high yield, distressed) and dollar sensitive strategies (emerging markets).”
Singapore hedge fund challenges Japan regulator over insider charge (Reuters)
A small Singapore-based hedge fund accused of insider trading in Japan is disputing the charge, the latest financial institution to brave the odds and challenge the regulator in an attempt to stave off damage to its reputation. Last year, Japan’s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC) accused MAM Pte of acting on an insider tip about a share offering by Nippon Sheet Glass and demanded the hedge fund pay a penalty of 8 million yen ($74,710). The regulators’ case against MAM was based on testimony from Junpei Harino, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) employee who admitted to passing on information to the fund.
Hedge Fund Manager Accused Of Stealing To Buy Porsche (Finalternatives)
A hedge-fund manager’s taste for luxury cars has proven his undoing. WestEnd Capital Management’s Sean Cooper treated the hedge fund like a personal piggy bank, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges, siphoning off more than $320,000 in investor funds. More than half of that when towards a “187,000 Porsche,” the SEC said. “Cooper betrayed the hedge fund’s investors by lining his own pockets with fund assets that he had not earned,” the SEC’s Marshall Sprung said. “His fraud went undetected because WestEnd had no internal controls to limit Cooper’s ability to withdraw excessive amounts from the fund.”
Here a bubble, there a bubble: Ol’ Marc Faber (CNBC)
Even after the Dow and the S&P 500 closed at new all-time highs, closely followed contrarian Marc Faber keeps sounding the alarm. “We have a bubble in everything, everywhere,” the publisher of The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday. Faber has long argued that the Federal Reserve’s massive asset purchasing programs and near-zero interest rates have inflated stock prices. The catalyst for a market decline, as he sees it, could be a “raise in interest rates, not engineered by the Fed,” referring an increase in bond yields.
Recommended Reading:
Relypsa Inc (RLYP): Orbimed Advisors Trims Its Exposure to the Company
Churchill Downs, Inc. (CHDN): Three Bays Capital Discloses 5% Passive Stake
Edwards Lifesciences Corp (EW): Generation Investment Management Ups Stake To Over 5%
